The Problem With Seeing Jess Naked
by 123serendipitee
Summary: Nick has trouble processing the thoughts and emotions prompted by seeing his roommate naked, but he thinks he has a new solution.
1. Chapter 1

"I'm telling you Jess, I have an ulcer, right HERE, with your name tattooed across it!"

Nick and Jess had been fighting a lot lately. Just about stupid things. The correct pronunciation of "facade". Whether or not eggs really have to be refrigerated. Bob Dylan.

Actually, to be more accurate, _Nick _had been fighting a lot lately. Jess had mostly just been cocking her head at him in befuddlement, or, more infuriatingly, just smiling with secret affection at his irrational grumpiness.

Yes, living with her was definitely giving him a festering ulcer.

"It's going to start bleeding any day now...I can feel it...and when it does..." he snapped his fingers and thrust one in her face, "...THAT'S the day the gloves come off!"

"The gloves." she stated flatly.

"THE GLOVES, Jess."

"You're wearing gloves."

"You've NEVER SEEN ME WITHOUT THEM." This was supposed to sound threatening and intimidating and dangerous, as if he had dark depths of personality that she had yet to glimpse.

Instead she wrinkled her forehead in confusion, and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with one finger, totally throwing the flow of the argument off course as she puzzled, "See, I've never really understood that metaphor. You _have_ been wearing boxing gloves, but what you really _want _to do is bare-knuckle fist fight me? Is that the gist of it?"

"What? no! It's an expression, Jess..." An expression he was suddenly not so clear on the meaning of, himself, and he stumbled over explaining, "I think it's referring more to kid gloves...you know...handling something carefully, with kid gloves..."

"Now you're wearing a child's mittens? Really Nick, you're losing me here..."

All he could do was stare at her with seething wordlessness. How do you carry on a perfectly rational irrational fight with someone who turns it into a discussion of entomology?

He held his hands up in the air as he backed away before he really lost it on her. "You're amazing. Just amazing." Retreating to his room, he punctuated the warbled "THAAANK YOUUU!" that followed him down the hall, with a slam so hard his door popped back open again and had to be re-slammed.

The second one was for the "what the hell is up with him these days?" looks that he knew his roommates were all currently exchanging.


	2. Chapter 2

You see, the problem with seeing Jess naked was that once seen, it could not be unseen. And oh, he wanted so very, VERY much, to unsee it.

Sometimes he looked back with fond recollection on the innocence of The Days Before He Saw Jess Naked.

Life was so much easier then. So much more simple. So much...less...AUUUUUG!

Nick threw himself back on his bed, tossed a pillow over his face, and dropped his arms by his sides in limp defeat.

In the beginning he'd thought to eradicate the provocative image from his mind by simply refusing to dwell on the fact that it had happened at all.

That was Plan A.

And at first, it wasn't so bad. Sure, he slipped up here and there, but for the most part he'd done a really good job not remembering the alluring creamy perfection that was her skin. Not recalling the way her body had tapered and flared in all the right places and ways.

But as time passed, it seemed like the better job he did forgetting the more he accidentally started remembering.

Jess would wander through the living room in a pair of jeans, and he couldn't help but eyeball the exact curve where he now knew her white legs began rounding up into supple hips.

He'd walk in on her brushing her hair in the bathroom, and would involuntarily flash on the way her wavy raven tresses had looked that night, like mermaid hair, capriciously covering and uncovering all the good bits.

Damn it, he'd start peeling an orange for breakfast, and find himself idly weighing it in his hand, supposing it to be about the approximate size of one of her...

"Hey Nick?"

"WHAAAAT?"

"Geez, ok," Winston mumbled on the other side of his door, "I was just going to ask if you wanted to go out to eat with us, but maybe you're not in the mood..."

"Is Jess going?"

A few silent seconds. "Yeah."

"Then I'm **not in the mood**."

There was no reply, but a few heavy seconds hung in the balance before he heard Winston sigh and walk away.

Dammit. She was turning him into a hermit with his own friends, in his own apartment.

He immediately realized that that was unfair...that none of this was really Jess's fault. She didn't have a clue (God, he hoped not, anyway!) about the kinds of things that were going through his head these days.

So she had no idea that when she bent over to do something as simple as getting the trash together, he would catch himself, like some kind of creepy pervert, watching the hem line of one of her stupid short skirts inch its way up the back of her legs, half hoping and half dreading that he'd see something that he'd seen before.

She was guileless about the effect that it had on him when one of her tiny pairs of panties, which were always getting left behind in the recesses of the dryer, ended up finding their way into the static-y folds of his favorite red hoodie.

She would put her bare feet up on the coffee table as they watched TV, completely unaware of the fact that he couldn't forget that her dainty toes, now twitching unconsciously along with the music on the commercial, had once danced naked on his bedroom floor.

So, yeah. There was all that.

And then even more disturbingly, he'd been finding more and more lately that he kinda wanted to... touch her. To get close to her. Kinda felt like he NEEDED to. And so he'd kinda started finding excuses to.

He would follow her into a room, ostensibly pushing her impatiently along, but really just using the opportunity to rest his palm on the delicious dip the small of her back took, just before it started curving promisingly outward.

He'd say "excuse me, you're fine, stay where you are" in the kitchen, as she stood at the chopping board, reaching over her head to get a mug out of the cupboard. Except that sometimes afterwords he would discover that he didn't really need a mug, he'd just needed to know what her hair smelled like that day.

He offered to carry things for her a lot. Or if he was already carrying things, sometimes he needed help. Because the exchanges that took place when dividing and sharing a load meant a significant amount of touching of hands. And he learned that the bones in her fingers felt fine and hollow like a bird's, and that the tips had callouses from playing the guitar.

Nick growled a sigh to himself and rubbed his face in aggravated resignation. YEP, he'd let himself get in a bad way, here, but he had to stop blaming _her_. It wasn't her fault she had a creepy pervert for a roommate.

A horny dirty-minded pervert who hadn't enjoyed the pleasure of female company for months on end, now.

THAT was it, he told himself. Trying to cut himself some slack. Trying to downplay the effect that she was ever-increasingly having on him. It had just "been awhile" for him. To say the least. And with no romantic prospects on the horizon, it would be awhile longer, unless he just gave in and went home with one of the desperate cougars at the bar who were always trying to pick him up.

And he was really trying to avoid getting that desperate, himself.

So let's see, he pondered with another sigh. After a promising start, Plan A had fizzled out spectacularly. And Plan B had been...well, what _had _Plan B been exactly?

He wasn't even sure _he _knew.

Plan B hadn't been a thought-out strategy, so much as just a defense mechanism.

He'd stayed mad at her all the time, lately. But why?

Partly because in a way, this _was _all her fault. You know...the whole fact that they'd ever even seen each other naked, at all. And if he was honest, maybe it also bruised his ego a bit to notice that apparently seeing _him_ naked hadn't had the same effect on _her_.

And then there was the fact that he was just frustrated, and mad at _himself_, and was taking it out on _everyone _these days.

But also maybe some part of his mind was hoping that if he could just focus on everything that was _annoying_ about her...and let's face it, there was a lot to pick from...that he'd just forget about_...the rest_.

In the end, Nick had to sigh and admit to himself that, regardless of precise definition, the "Plan B" phase that they'd all been living in lately was just making everyone miserable, and wasn't solving anything.

Because he still couldn't get that image of her out of his head.

So he inhaled deeply now, fortifying himself, and allowed his mind to consider the one approach that he had previously never been willing to even allow himself to entertain the _thought _of.

What if he looked straight into the sun?

What if he was honest with himself. What if he finally, for the first time, really allowed himself to think about that night. To actually linger, in his mind's eye, on exactly how she had looked. To finally let himself FEEL, without shame, the visceral reaction his body had had to that visual.

Because that was really just natural, right? He was a guy. Guys liked to see naked things. Nothing creepy or weird about that.

Even if it was your roommate who you had, at one time,_ thought _would become kinda like a little sister to you.

Yeah. So much for that. _That _kinda got blown out of the water.

He laid there, feeling a little calmer now that he had another plan, until the mumbles and scufflings of his roommates leaving the loft were finally silenced by the muted clicks of the loft door being shut and locked behind them.

And he laid there a good five minutes more, just floating on the surface of the heavy silence that was left in the apartment.

Then he took a deep bracing breath. "Let's do this," he thought with grim resolution, and he reached over and turned off his bedside lamp.

Like thinking these thoughts in the dark would somehow make them less embarrassing.

Keep them shrouded in secrecy. Barely acknowledge them later on, even to himself. That was the plan.


	3. Chapter 3

And so he proceeded.

Tentatively, at first.

To begin with, of course, one had to get past the memory of just how awful that night had actually been. The shock of seeing Jess trying to sneak across his floor. The horrified screams of both girls. Aaaand, the scene that had gone down with Amanda subsequent to Jess finally finding her way out his door.

A short scene, because Amanda had wasted no time in getting out of his room, herself.

But there in the middle there...starting about the time that damn towel dropped...that was the troublesome spot. The frustratingly beautifully taboo troublesome spot that had stuck in his head, even after all the other emotions from the night had faded.

Because no matter how completely horrible and even enraging the entire episode had been, there was no denying that a naked Jess was a good thing. A very good thing.

A very good thing that had been creeping its way into his dreams ever since. Except that in his dreams, no one was yelling, and Jess wasn't_ leaving _his room, she was entering, calm and shameless, and the gentle smile on her face was full of happy hope.

His dreams were even in slow motion, dammit, with her hair pulsing around her in a soft aura, as if floating underwater.

But one thing his dreams did not have to improve upon was Jess herself. Because to his way of thinking, to change any little part of her would have been messing with perfection.

Oh sure, her curves weren't as generous as Caroline's had been. And maybe she wasn't as tautly fit as Amanda.

But she was tiny, and soft, and just..._JESS. _And as much as he would like to separate who she _was _from these maddening kinds of thoughts and feelings, it was impossible.

Because if she wasn't JESS, then these kinds of feelings wouldn't be off-limits.

_But_ if she wasn't JESS...then would he even_ be _feeling these things?

It was all very complicated. And really, he was just a simple man. A very simple man. So any misguided ventures down that path of thought inevitably led to him returning, like a frightened dog skittering safely home, back to what he did know and was sure of.

And what he was sure of was that he'd liked what he'd seen, that night.

He'd always thought of Jess as skinny. Turned out, she really wasn't "skinny" so much as just plain LITTLE. Amanda was skinny. Holding Amanda in his arms had felt like holding a bag full of bones. But while Jess was an undeniably tiny girl, so tiny that she almost seemed fragile at times, her frame also looked delightfully _womanly _at every turn. No sharp bones or hard muscles, every angle and curve had appeared to be full of it's own soft promise. The arc that her hips followed was subtle but lush, her thighs were smooth satin pillows of potential, and oh god, when he let himself think about her butt...perfectly rounded and pert and just begging to be...GAAAAAAAH...

That was when his pants got tight, and the palms of his hands started itching, and the real hating of himself began. But there was no turning back now.

Because the undulating outline of her legs, and waist, and that sweet, sweet hind end was not all he'd seen that night. She'd turned around, and YES, he'd seen...

_...everything_.

Her breasts, so small and soft and real (unlike Amanda's), he could not even begin to imagine how tender and precious they would feel under a man's tongue.

The fine lines of her rib cage tapering to a delicate waist, creating the ideal handhold for a man to grab her and pull her to him.

Beneath that, the tenderness of her flat little belly, just waiting to yield to the right man's attentions, and it was a heavenly brand of torture to imagine nibbling his way around the shallow button that marked its center.

Lower still, the plane of that enticing midpoint, those deceivingly chaste inches that marked the place where a man either turned back, or forged ahead.

And he was forging ahead now. Because yes, he'd seen her "gumbo pot". Or...the hint of its warm, silken folds, anyway. And it was a place...if he was being really honest with himself right now..._and he was_...that he wanted to visit. Possibly vacation at. Extensively. He squeezed his eyes shut tight as he imagined reaching out a finger and just softly beginning to part those tenderest of lips, and...

...and his release came so early that it would have been a worrisome embarrassment, if it hadn't been such a relief. Having to work for it would have felt more scandalous than he was prepared to deal with, quite yet.

_So...yeah...that happened._


	4. Chapter 4

He laid there listening to his breathing slow, feeling his heart rate return to normal, and letting his thoughts wind down, like a merry-go-round, to a grinding rest.

He felt more relaxed, to be sure, both in body and mind...but now that "it" was over, the hard truth was beginning to set in.

Nope. This wasn't just going to go away.

He groaned and turned to look at the clock. His roommates would probably be home soon.

Squeezing a tight breath out through his nose, he used his underwear to do some rudimentary cleaning up, before heading towards the bathroom.

Blinking in the sudden harsh light, he scowled at himself in the mirror. _ You're weak, Miller...weak.  
_  
He'd been taking way too many cold showers lately, so this time he took one that nearly scalded the hide off his back.

By the time the gang came shuffling back in for the night, he was dried, dressed, and making himself look busy on his laptop. When Jess knocked on the door to his room, he almost even felt ready to face her.

"Come in."

"Hey...Nick?" she peeked in hesitantly.

"Come on in Jess," he said wearily, "I promise I won't bite."

She breached the threshold and looked around bit, almost like she was doing some remembering of her own, before coming to perch cautiously on the edge of his bed.

"Soooo," she said, "The guys and I were talking..."

Nick groaned inwardly, imagining the inevitable discussion of his recent behavior that had probably taken place while they were gone.

"...aaaaand, so, yeah," she laughed nervously, and a little sadly, "You've seemed kinda...on edge, lately."

"That's fair to say," Nick sniffed ruefully.

"Well...is it something I did? Are you mad at me about something? I'd do anything to make things ok with you again Nick, I just don't know what to do, and I'm tired of fighting with you all the time."

He smiled at her affectionately, feeling like he was really looking at her in the first time in weeks. "Me too," he said simply.

Her bright smile in return was a gift he didn't deserve, he realized, so he continued, "Listen, Jess, you know how you acted so weird that day when we went to the drugstore..."

It was her turn to be embarrassed, and a little wary, "Yeeeeah..."

"Well...I've just been acting weird. Like that. That's all. Just ignore me...I've been all up in my head about something, and I've been taking it out on you, and it's not your fault at all. I'm sorry."

She didn't seem to know what to say, so she just smiled and patted his hand. He kind of held his breath while he gauged his reaction, but considering his recent, errr, release of tension, it didn't effect him as much as he might have feared. Her touching his hand. While sitting on his bed. In his bedroom.

Yep, maybe Plan C hadn't been such a bad one after all. Maybe he could make this work.

She was standing now, and moving towards his door saying in the goofy fashion she sometimes used to cover her emotions, "Ok, well I'm going to skedaddle before I do something to ruin this nice moment and make you yell at me again." But she turned back before leaving, and for a split second his mind flashed back to the other time she'd stood by his door, and then spun to face him. But he stuffed that memory back down again as she asked with a hesitant sweet shyness, "Friends?"

And he smiled back, wanting more than anything for it to remain to be true.

"Friends."


End file.
